The Hobbit was a good intro for the series, but the trilogy was way better. I found the Fellowship real slow on its own, Two Towers was way more interesting and Return...excellent, but overall none of these books to me stands up well on its own.....but as a trilogy, to me it is the best I have ever read!

I've tried reading Te Silmarillion once....and found it very difficult! Need to try it again......

Yeah, The Silmarillion was definitely hard the first time around, but I only had a bare understanding of LOTR when I got through it the first time. It's got a lot of the best heroic Tolkien stories everybody loves, like with the fall of Fingolfin, and all the tragedies, like with Turin, and of course Beren and Luthien...

Anyway, you're life just isn't complete until you've at least read it all the way through once.

The Silmarillion! One of the best books ever written, IMHO. Yeah, it was hard to get through, it took me 4 attempts. But once I made it all the way through, I became addicted to it. I reread it 3 or 4 times a year.